SIMLA BEAT 70/71 is a compilation of East Indian garage bands originally released as a promotional item by an Indian tobacco company.
In the late '60s/early '70s the Indian cigarette company, Simla, held (or purported to hold) a series of rock'n'roll talent contests, and from these came the albums that are reissued in this 2-CD set.

The reissue seems to be pretty much a straight reissue of both albums, with the album art and the original (highly amusing) liner notes reproduced within. The music is pretty cool -- in some respects it recreates Western pop, and even includes covers of oldies such as "You Can't Judge A Book" and "Born On The Bayou". But there's definitely a wild and unruly local twist on the proceedings, an unusual metric distortion that creeps into the music. Even better yet is when the artists sing in their own language (as opposed to English), which usually occurs on the wilder, more psychedelic tunes. I'm not personally that up on the history of Indian pop-rock, so I can't even speculate on how popular any of these bands really were back in the hippie days, but these recordings are a real find.

This is about as obscure as garage gets. For two years, 1970 and 1971, a cigarette company in India sponsored some kind of battle-of-the-bands competition, with the winners going to Calcutta to record for compilations called Simla Beat. Each year an lp was released with no info about the bands other than their hometown. Also issued was this 45 released with two of the better tracks and some silly liner notes on the back of the sleeve.

I was a kid of 8 years when my parents took me to see the Simla Beat Contests 70/71. If I remember correctly, they were held in SHANMUKHANANDA HALL in Bombay, a famous place for dramas, concerts, recitals at that time.
In those days, India was starved for music. It was very hard to get Passports or USD for travel. There was only one show on the radio playing English music for an hour a week, and that was mostly pathetic pop ( Carpenters, Anka, Denver for example).
Most music trickled down into India via Cassettes smuggled in by "My friends's girlfriend who is an airhostess with AIR INDIA".
Hence a chance to hear Psych, Rock was a godsend.

This was my first exposure to the likes of CCR, Cream though I didnt know those names then and only realised 10 years later that Bayou was originally sung by CCR.
My dad got hold of the LPs of Simla Beat Contest and we recorded them on our spool player. I remember listening to them very often ( Along with our recording of Woodstock).
Recently, there was a tune playing over and over in my head and I realised I first heard it on the Simla Beat Contest LPs. I obtained the recording and I was immediately transported into my childhood.

There it was, a raw recording of young kids, with their very live feeling, you can make out that the recording is not the greatest ( Its noisy and not well balanced) , the singing is slightly out of tune sometimes, but its pure raw live music. You can feel you are right there with the band in a practice session.

In many ways, Simla Beat contest was one of the reasons why I purchased a Guitar when I was 15 and have spend the last 30 years trying to play it!!!!